Baseball-Watching Etiquette

I'm going to my first NPB game on Saturday (Hanshin at Chunichi). I'm probably not going to stand for those reasons, at least not during the run of play. (That and I'm in the most expensive section; I'd probably get the Japanese equivalent to "down in front!" from the corporate big wigs. ) I'm going to try to take all my pictures pre-game (before the first pitch), although what I really want to take pictures of is the crowd. Good thing you brought this up, I definitely don't want to commit a faux pas at the game.

And I'm apparently going to be in the section with the visitors' dugout, must resist the urge to heckle.

- I'm going to my first NPB game on Saturday (Hanshin at Chunichi). I'm probably not going to stand for those reasons, at least not during the run of play. (That and I'm in the most expensive section; I'd probably get the Japanese equivalent to "down in front!" from the corporate big wigs.

I should have been clearer. In parks that have a concourse at the rear of the lower seating bowl, that's where I stand. Behind everyone else.

It will be surreal to see Adam Riggs, George Arias, and Marty Brown. They all did stints with one of the local minor-league teams (Cedar Rapids, Iowa). Maybe they'll recognize my cap.

It will depend on the stadium. At some stadiums, you have to enter through the gate number where your official seat is and can't get into other sections.

You'll soon catch on that one big difference is you cheer and sing when your team is batting and generally stay quiet when they are in the field.

I find the atmosphere at parks here actually more relaxed and enjoyable than in the U.S. For example, you can bring in all kinds of food and even your own beer (although you generally have to pour it into paper cups). It is also generally easy to strike up a conversation and make some new Japanese friends for the night.

Enjoy!

If you are in the expensive seats you will remain sitting for the whole game. It's only in the oenden that people stand. Basically you stand when your team is batting and sit when they are pitching. Moving around is OK - no one objects and lots of people will go to the boundary fence when the teams are practicing before the match. Taking photos is no problem during the match, but you should try not to block others' views. To buy beer just catch the eye of a beer girl and wave at her.

All stadiums are different, but in my experience you basically need to stay seated - even in the oendan areas - at least until the later innings. Any Tigers games are likely to be packed, so you probably won't be able to move around much anyway. Just follow the crowd.

But certainly the basic rule is to cheer when your team is batting and stay silent when your team is pitching - but again, just follow what the others are doing and you won't go wrong. I'd be careful about heckling too much, though.

Oh yes, make sure you buy a pair of those plastic things you bang together, and a packet of jetto fusen (jet balloons) where these are used.

JR said, "At some stadiums, you have to enter through the gate number where your official seat is and can't get into other sections." Are Jingu, Yokohama, and the Big Egg among those parks?

By the way, are Friday, September 29 and Monday, October 2 still "empty" days or have makeup games been scheduled then?

Staying seated is not something you do in the oendan areas. Everyone stands from the first inning, and this applies to all the stadiums I have been to. This applies to fans from both sides of the oendan. Moving around is also fairly easy and everyone circulates quite a lot. Also jumping up to celebrate a score is common in the areas you do stay seated.

Note: balloons are banned at Tokyo Dome and Yokohama. They're OK at Jingu.

Areas are fenced off from each other and you do need your ticket to gain access to them. Thus if you pay for the expensive seats you probably wouldn't be allowed into the oendan areas.

- Staying seated is not something you do in the oendan areas

I don't want to make a big fuss about this, but as someone who has actually sat in the middle of oendan, I can say that it is indeed possible. There's so much variety among the stadiums that it's difficult to offer definitive advice on this point. One should see what everyone else is doing. Just go with the flow.

JR said,

- At some stadiums, you have to enter through the gate number where your official seat is and can't get into other sections. Are Jingu, Yokohama, and the Big Egg among those parks?

Sorry, don't know details about these parks. I was basing this on Koshien. I would imagine the Big Egg is fairly regimented, but I don't know for sure. Jingu and Yokohama should have their share of empty seats, so you should have some relative freedom in these stadiums. Buy a cheap umbrella and join in the fun at Jingu. It's a pretty rundown stadium, but it's actually my favorite of the three.

Tokyo Dome is very well organized and very well regulated. You have to enter the correct outer gate. Then you have an inner gate to get to the seating area guarded by attendants. These are also numbered and you have to use the correct gate to get to your seat. If you want to go out you have to show your ticket again at the right gate.

You are right about Jingu - its a lovely ground.

- Jingu and Yokohama should have their share of empty seats, so you should have some relative freedom in these stadiums. Buy a cheap umbrella and join in the fun at Jingu. It's a pretty rundown stadium, but it's actually my favorite of the three.

Basically at Jingu, if you have an outfield ticket (reserved or un-reserved seating) you can walk around the outfield stands all you like, but you will not be able to get into any of the infield seats as the two sections are physically different structures with no connection between them. And obviously the reverse applies if you have an infield ticket of any kind.

I would describe Jingu as more a little tatty than rundown (sorry for being a pedant). If you want to see a truly run down stadium then I would recommend a trip to Hiroshima Stadium, which incidentally also has the ugliest cheerleaders I have ever seen, who are at the front of the left field stands. Great experience though when it's fairly full and rocking - and a very friendly bunch of fans there, too.

OK, let's just agree and call Jingu "charming." Although I've heard they've destroyed the atmosphere there by employing some kind of hip-hop gimmick on the big screen between innings. Is this still going on?

Hiroshima may be rundown, but you can't beat it for location.

If you mean the player introduction with manga, it was last time I went. However, the atmosphere is still there and is unaffected.

Thank you to all of you. You've enlightened me. This promises to be very interesting. Being a sit-on-my-hands type of person, I'll probably stay far from the cheering section.

- Being a sit-on-my-hands type of person, I'll probably stay far from the cheering section.

Hey, you can't say you've experienced Japanese baseball if you haven't gotten near the cheering section! You might have a headache the next day, but it'll be worth it!

Mentioned those cheerleaders on the favorite stadium thread. You are right, they are darn awful!

Well, as someone who literally went to 9 Japanese stadiums in the last 2 weeks, I can tell you that you're not going to be able to get all those different angles. As someone mentioned, with Jingu, you have the choice of infield or outfield, and you can't go between them. I couldn't tell how closely they were checking tickets in the infield. As an aside, though, the outfield unreserved at Jingu seemed huge - all the way from center field to pretty much partially in the infield, lots of angles there, and you can watch the guys warming up in the bullpen as it's on the field, unlike most other stadiums.

I don't get the mystique of Jingu though; it didn't seem that great to me. Also, the Engrish announcer guy really grated on my nerves after a few innings (and it was especially weird to have him announcing the Swallows and the typical uguisujyou announcing the BayStars).

Yokohama Stadium is great. No fences. If you want to take pictures, I recommend getting the FA seats. Anything in S or B is going to be behind the home plate netting, which is extensively large, probably to make up for the lack of huge freaking fences around the infield like they have at every other stadium. And personally, I had a seat in B, and was able to sneak up to the high part of A seating, at a Giants game, no less. There are some sections that there's a lot of mobility between and a lot of ticket strictness, and some that there isn't.

The only catch if you're planning to stand and move a lot and take pictures of people is that people are going to look at you funny - the whole time. I didn't really take a lot of pictures of fans because I didn't want to offend anyone, though I did take a lot of pictures in general (about 3,000 for my whole trip, yikes), and most people there have cameras, even if only a few are actually snapping away the whole game. (I really have no idea what the right way is to take pictures of fans, but I didn't really think it was worth disrupting anyone's enjoyment of the game to ask them if I could take a picture in most parts; I took pictures of people in the Fighters oendan sections between innings, and mostly of people I'd been chatting with anyway, which also seemed normal; a few people wanted to get a picture of me after I'd been hanging out with them for a game.)

The other catch is the fences. They're high and really annoying to take pictures around. Some stadiums seemed okay with standing in the aisle to take pictures, some didn't (at Miyagi Fullcast, I pretty much stood in the walkway behind the first base field seats for about three innings taking pictures, but at Seibu, I was told to sit down).

Anyway, the real upshot is, I think the worst that'll happen if you do something dumb is that people will point and laugh at you. I think you said in your other post that you don't understand Japanese, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Many thanks, Deanna! You've helped me get the "lay of the land."

By the way, are Giants' tickets a problem to get? The FAQ says they are, but I wonder if the Giants' recent slide has changed that.

It depends on the venue and where you want to sit. The lower level seats behind home plate to the dugouts go pretty quickly (although I suspect that many of them are being bought up by dafuya (scalpers)). Since Tigers fans are more than willing to part with their hard earned money for the chance of seeing the Tigers defeat the Giants, the dafuya work extra hard at securing all tickets when Hanshin comes to town. Otherwise, you should be able to get upper deck seats on game day without any problem.